Just How Wet Has This Summer Been in Wisconsin?

Through much of this meteorological summer (June 1st through August 31st), Wisconsin has remained on the periphery of a subtropical high located across the the southern United States. While residents underneath this high have seen record heat, a progressive train of weather systems rotating around this high have brought frequent rounds of precipitation across the Northern Plains, Upper Mississippi River Valley, and Great Lakes. With the exception of northeast Wisconsin, the drought has been alleviated across much of the state. From June 1st through August 26th, rainfall values have ranged from 13 inches to nearly 28 inches. Normally only 13 inches falls during an entire meteorological summer. The graphic below provides the twenty highest precipitation totals for this summer across Wisconsin.

While the precipitation totals above are rather impressive, only three locations have made it into the top twenty wettest Wisconsin meteorlogical summers. The greatest precipitation ever recorded in a Wisconsin summer was 30.27 inches at Gays Mills in 2007.

During the summer of 2010, 49 cooperative precipitation reporters have established new precipitation records. While this sounds very impressive, half of these sites had precipitation records that were less than a decade in length.

Precipitation Records Established
during the 2010 Meteorological Summer